


because i could not stop for death (it stopped for me)

by hellchoirs



Series: I Did Not Die [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Ben Hargreeves Lives, Blood and Gore, Gen, Ghost Klaus, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, No Incest, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:35:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22884880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellchoirs/pseuds/hellchoirs
Summary: Klaus is dead, but he isn'tgone. As long as he remains that way, he will be with his family.
Series: I Did Not Die [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1644859
Comments: 62
Kudos: 327





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This carries on directly from the first part in the series and I recommend reading that first!

The Academy is extremely quiet following his death and it feels like Five’s disappearance all over again.

Klaus pads inside the house, cautious of his footsteps as if they make noise in the first place. No one is downstairs and the entire floor is eerie and unsettling. He lingers in the corridor, standing between the kitchen and the living room and looking around. His eyes catch the portrait of Five hung up in the living room, illuminated by the show light above it. He wonders if he will get a similar one in the empty space beside it on the wall.

He turns to face the staircase leading up to their bedrooms. He knows where they all will be; he had been part of this when Five had disappeared, after all, and unless they were as unbothered by his death as Reginald is, they will be doing the same as they had then.

Klaus ascends the stairs. His hand ghosts over the banister to his side, too uncertain to try and touch it in case his hand falls right through it. At the top of the stairs, he catches sight of Mom sitting by her paintings. Her hands are folded on her lap, her eyes trained on her wall of paintings, head tilted ever so slightly to the side.

Klaus turns away from her and continues down the corridor. His footsteps are non-existent no matter how heavy he might step and he has to resist the urge to stomp his feet, to hit his hand against the wall, to make noise and draw attention to himself. He restrains simply due to the fear he has that he won’t make any noise and it will only confirm how invisible he is.

He ascends one more staircase, clambering up into the attic.

All of his siblings are there; sitting in a semi-circle at the back, near one of the sky-lights, using old pillows to be comfortable on the floor.

Klaus bites down the urge to announce his presence like he usually would; with clumsy steps, a loud, exaggerated greeting. He almost feels like an intruder; they are sitting closely, closer than they have in the last year or two, and talking. Some of them are, anyway. Ben is staring out of the window silently, chin on his knees, and Vanya is staring at her hands, sniffling occasionally.

“We – we should have ch-checked on him,” Diego stammers, on his feet and pacing, hands clenching and unclenching into fists. His jaw locks and he hisses his breath out between his clenched teeth. “We’re s-supposed to count-count the enemy, and we l-let one go.”

“We can’t change it,” says Allison, looking up at him. She swipes her fingertips beneath her eyes, wiping away stray tears. “We can’t go back, Diego.”

Diego barks out a sharp, bitter laugh. “If only F-Five was here,” he mutters. His lips purse distastefully and he finally ceases his pacing, turning to look at his siblings and forcing his shoulders to release some tension. His bitter smile gives way to a quivering frown and he shakes his head. “He – he was c-cold,” he states.

Allison looks away quickly.

“D-Dad knew he couldn’t be on m-missions,” Diego mutters.

“Dad was doing what he needed to for all of us,” Luther says, swallowing thickly. Diego whirls on him in an instant.

“S-shut the fuck up, Luther,” he hisses, eyes wide with anger. “Dad knew it was a s-stupid fucking idea to keep fo-forcing us all on missions, he knew it wouldn’t – wouldn’t go well.”

Luther’s expression shifts from grief to muted anger and he shifts on the spot, folding his arms across his chest and lifting his head up subconsciously, standing taller. “Dad is trying to get us to work together again, Diego,” Luther states with a vaguely accusing tone. “It’s in our best interest to do that-“

“Obviously not!” Diego snaps. “If we hadn’t gone – K-Kl – _he_ would still be here right now.”

“It isn’t Dad’s fault,” Luther defends.

“It isn’t _Klaus’_!”

“I didn’t say that,” Luther snaps. “Don’t put words into my mouth, Diego.”

“What else were you going to say then?” Diego asks, quirking an eyebrow at him. “Dad didn’t care – he didn’t even get out of the car! He didn’t say shit at his f-funeral! Dad doesn’t care!”

“Diego, stop that,” Luther growls, and he takes a few steps forwards, as does Diego.

“He didn’t give a shit about Five, he didn’t give a shit about – about K-Klaus, and he doesn’t give a shit about _us_ -“

“ _Diego_ -“

“Shut up!” Allison blurts, rising swiftly to her feet and inserting herself between both boys. “Just shut up! Are you really going to argue about this right now, Diego?”

Diego stares at her then jabs his finger in Luther’s direction. “Why don’t you tell Luther that, huh?” He sneers, lips twisting. “You know that Dad doesn’t give a fuck about any of us and he never has-“

“Maybe if you actually did what he wanted you to do, you would see he actually does care, Diego – everything he does is for us-“

“Everything he has done has put us all in situations where we can die and where two of us have!” Diego snaps, voice raised to a loud yell. Luther steps around Allison, brushing her aside and coming to stand nearly toe to toe with Diego, looking down his nose at him.

“Dad would never do something if he thought we wouldn’t be okay-“

“He would do anything to feed his own delusions-“

“Dad is grieving just like all of us, Diego-“

“He said nothing! They buried him and he said nothing!” Diego reaches up, shoving his hands into Luther’s chest and forcing him back a few steps, and Luther swats his hands away, nostrils flaring.

“You don’t get to say that Dad doesn’t care after everything he’s done for us,” growls Luther, and he grabs Diego’s wrist when Diego throws a punch at him.

“Stop – stop it!” Vanya yells, a pitiful attempt that makes Klaus feel sorry for her, and she almost instantly falls silent again, though now on her feet. The two boys swiftly fall into a scuffle, shoving at one another and ducking or taking punches.

Ben uses the wall to his side to get up onto his feet and begins to shuffle to the stairs slowly, giving his brothers a sad look.

“Both of you, stop it!” Allison hisses, trying to grab one of their arms to tug them aside. “Stop – _I heard a rumour that you both stopped fighting_!”

As fast as a trigger on a gun, Luther and Diego stop; their eyes go cloudy and dazed, bodies slumping, and it takes several moments for them to blink away the haze that had befallen them. Luther stares at Allison with a conflicted expression before stepping backwards, and Diego glares at her.

“Fuck you both,” he spits, and then he turns to the stairs. He pauses at the sight of Ben. He’s quiet, face heavy, eyes sad and tears spilling down onto his cheeks. “Ben?”

He just shakes his head, looking between them all with a vaguely disapproving look, and then he goes downstairs. Diego’s gaze returns to Luther and Allison, jaw clenched, and he turns and storms downstairs.

“Give him time,” Allison mutters, squeezing Luther’s shoulder. Then she steps around him, heading down the stairs, and Luther follows close behind.

Klaus startles at the sniffle behind him. He whips around, surprised to see Vanya there, blinking rapidly and gritting her teeth together. She rubs roughly at her eyes as if trying to force herself to be composed, stares up at the low ceiling above her head. Even dead, Klaus had forgotten she was there.

He feels like he is still trying to catch up with what had just happened; struggling to process Diego and Luther’s argument. A part of him is hurt, though he isn’t sure what else he had expected. They had been close when Five disappeared; full of childish hope and delusion that he would come back, reassuring and finding comfort in one another. They were older, now. Be it only by three years, but so much has seemed to happen in those three years. They have changed so much. They don’t find comfort in one another. Diego had steadily been shutting himself from everyone, talking now mostly to Klaus and Ben. Ben had kept to himself when not with Klaus. Allison and Luther confided everything in one another, and Vanya spoke to none of them. She used to be close to Allison but over the past year, they had been drifting apart.

Perhaps he ought to think this is a bad sign; not even now could they even tolerate one another to grieve together. But if Klaus was to say he had expected them all to reconcile and be as close as they were when they were eleven, due to a death or not, that would be a lie.

He turns his gaze back to Vanya; sniffling, eyes screwed shut as if embarrassed by her inability to stop crying.

“Vanya,” he says, stumbling a few steps closer. The floorboards beneath his feet ought to be creaking, moaning lowly beneath his weight. His shoes ought to squeak and shuffle over a discarded blanket, his shoelaces ought to tap against his shoes as he walks; but he is silent. Completely silent. Something inside his chest aches deeply. “Vanya? I’m here, Vanya.”

Vanya swipes her fingers beneath her eyes. She sucks in a deep breath, holds it and exhales. She doesn’t hear him. She steels herself, stares around the seemingly empty attic, and then she utters into the fragile air around hair; “I’m sorry, Klaus.”

Klaus freezes; stuck to the ground like a statue as he watches her walk right by him on her way downstairs. He blinks, stares at her back, and then he’s alone with her words echoing in his skull.

He lowers himself until he’s sitting on the floor, still staring in the direction of the staircase, head spinning, and the drip of his blood is silent.

* * *

He remains in the attic for a while. He can’t quite find within himself the motivation to get back onto his feet and he can find even less the motivation to seek out his siblings and see what they are doing, too.

Instead, he remains on the floor, and he thinks.

He is dead. He died by a bullet tearing through his organs and help not arriving in time. He isn’t sure whether or not the bullet remained inside of him or whether it had gone clean through, though he supposes it doesn’t matter; in the end he is still dead.

He isn’t limited to the museum where he had died, luckily. He does not feel drawn to any specific place, so he assumes he is free to go where he pleases. He isn’t stuck writhing on the floor, gasping and clutching his bleeding stomach, thankfully. He is just some invisible spectator.

Blood still trickles from the wound in his stomach slowly. He doesn’t feel a thing, but it is nauseating to look at. He covers it with his stomach and watches blood spill out over his fingers. His jumper is heavy and wet with it and it seeps into his sleeves, too. It stands out against his pale skin, sticks under his nails, and drips down onto the floor. As soon as it touches the floorboards, it disappears completely.

He shakes his hands, sends blood flying and splattering around the attic only for it to disappear. It is almost frustrating. He leaves absolutely no trace wherever he goes; he drags his feet over a blanket and it stays in the same place; he violently shoves one of the candles only for his hands to go through it; he hits his fists against the floor and no sounds comes from the impact. He has no shadow, he makes no noise, he doesn’t exist.

The world seems dark and cold, like being at the bottom of the ocean by himself, frozen cold and floating through nothingness. His body feels chilled in the way one might when jumping into and submerging themselves into a pool for the first time. He feels empty. Someone has turned his body inside out, stolen the blood from his veins and the marrow from his bones, and left him like a dead-eyed porcelain doll; hollow.

He feels muted and muffled, as if someone is holding him down, hand over his mouth, muffling everything. It makes him sick to realise why the ghosts were always so loud; the urge to scream until his lungs shrivel only grows with time with the increasing need to be seen, to be heard. If he, in this state, stumbled across someone alive who could see him, would he too not do whatever it took to get their attention?

And plus; the living contrast this experience so starkly. He had felt this when his siblings had approached; they simply radiated life; the warmth and the light of it all, they were like stumbling upon a bonfire after he had been trudging blindly through a blizzard for miles. When they left the cold and darkness of death washed over him again, left him feeling as if he might as well just be six foot under the dirt.

He is dead, and no one can see him, no one will ever know he is still there. He is doomed to an eternity of non-existence until it drives him too mad to care about it.

He covers his face with his hands and inhales shakily. His chest doesn’t move. He sucks in another breath; sharper, deeper, one that ought to fill every crevice of his lungs. He feels nothing; his chest remains still.

“Fuck!”

He throws his hands down by his sides, grinds his teeth together and glares tearfully ahead of him.

Reginald must know, he thinks. At the very least, Reginald must suspect that he is still around as a ghost. One would think he might be interested in exploring the possibility that his relationship with death would continue even deeper after his own death; that, maybe, he might have some powers while being dead. But in easily ignoring this possibility, he gets rid of Klaus and the burden he is.

Because he doesn’t care, he thinks. He doesn’t care about whether or not Klaus is truly gone or not. If he hadn’t made any attempts to find out whether or not Five was alive or dead, let alone anyway to help _him_ , then why would he do such a thing for _Klaus_?

He rises to his feet and begins to pace around the attic.

It is increasingly infuriating, realising now how utterly invisible he is; to see his siblings talk about him while he is right there – and, even worse, not even in a judgemental way. If they made retorts about his growing drug use, he might be able to deal with it and let the ocean in his bones burst free and devour him, drag him down into its nothingness until his mind doesn’t exist and he simply is just an empty doll moving with the waves inside of him, spurred on by the desperate need for that life that people radiate.

The thought makes him sad, but not for himself. If he turned into one of the mindless monsters like the ones in the mausoleum, hounding his own siblings, screaming obscenities at them for eternity, blood flying from his lips, his siblings would be none the wiser. They would never know what had become of him, would be convinced that he is somewhere better; that he’s found peace.

He won’t let that happen, he decides. He’s going to cling onto his humanity and he isn’t about to become one of those things that reside in the dark corners of old cemeteries.

Steeling himself, Klaus walks downstairs.

* * *

For some reason, his feet carry him to Reginald’s office. He stands outside the closed doors, staring at the familiar wood patterns.

He had not been inside this office for a long time, since they gave up on trying to tell their father goodnight when it always garnered no response; not even a glance.

The office was strictly off-limits. The only times they could approach and enter were if they had reports on their powers. That hadn’t happened for years.

Klaus lifts his hands and sets them onto the wood. He shoves; his hands don’t go through and the door doesn’t budge. His face twitches and his eyebrows draw together in confusion, and he shoves again.

He isn’t sure how to do it. Apparently, sometimes he can interact with objects as if they are solid, and sometimes he can phase right through them. He doesn’t know how to control that. He stamps down his bubbling frustration, breathes deeply, releases tension from his body and- steps through.

Reginald is sitting behind his desk, unsurprisingly. He has a book in front of him and he is staring down at the pages, a pen in his still hand.

Klaus steps with cautious. He expects Reginald to lift his head and fix Klaus with a cold look, one that will send him from the room without any words being uttered. But Reginald continues to stare down at his paper, face schooled into an unreadable, neutral expression.

With a bit more confidence, Klaus continues through the room and stands by his side. He can almost feel the phantom sensation of his heart pounding beneath his ribcage at this close proximity to Reginald when it isn’t allowed; the thrill of trespassing and the threat of getting caught. Only, he can’t get caught.

He leans over his shoulder, peering out at the book.

_NUMBER FOUR._

_DECEASED: Nov. 17 2005._

_Number Four’s passing is of no loss. With his absence, there may be less reckless and rebellious influence on the other children._

That is all that is written. Reginald places his page-marker there and closes the book with an air of finality; he places his pen beside it, rests one hand on the black leather cover, and then opens a drawer in his desk and sets it inside, closes it, and forgets about it

Klaus laughs. “Fuck you,” he mutters, shaking his head. He moves and in doing so passes slightly through Reginald.

The man lifts his head. Klaus freezes. Reginald’s eyes are narrowed ever so slightly and then they search around his room with a calculating look, one that terrifies Klaus. He expects Reginald to look at him, grab his arm and thrust him out of his office and then even further, towards the mausoleum with a disgusted look, but Reginald does and say nothing.

He settles back down in his chair, reaches for some paper, picks up his pen and dips it in a nearby pot of ink, and begins to write.

Klaus doesn’t stick around to read it.

* * *

He doesn’t know what to do. Lost, he returns to his bedroom out of instinct.

He pauses by the door. It is slightly ajar.

It is also past curfew; if Reginald found them out of their own bedrooms and out of bed, they would be punished tomorrow. Not that that has ever stopped them.

Klaus steps through his bedroom door.

Diego and Ben are sitting on the floor, legs crossed. One of his bedside lamps are on but otherwise the room is dark.

( _They are so bright, so warm, so alive-)_

The joint from yesterday morning is sitting on his neatly-made bed, like a rose on a coffin.

Between Diego and Ben is the old Ouija board Klaus had used early on in his training. There are a few nearby candles lit.

“A-are you sure this’ll work?” Diego whispers to Ben. His brother looks up, pale-faced and desperately hopeful.

“Klaus-Klaus used to say he would talk to some ghosts through it. It helped call them forwards to talk when he couldn’t get them,” Ben answers. “He did it a couple of times with me before.”

Diego nods, tongue dashing across his lips before he swallows. The air between them is delicate and fragile, tenacious, a hair’s breadth from dangerous.

Could Klaus breathe, he’d be suffocating. Instead, he simply sits down on one empty side of the Ouija board, his fingers trembling.

“What-“ Diego pauses to clear his throat. “What do we do?”

Ben swallows. “Two fingers,” he says, lifting his index and middle fingers of both his hands. Diego follows suit; when Ben places them onto the planchette settled on the middle of the board, he does too. “And we move it around the board, first, I think,” Ben murmurs, and Klaus can’t help but smile, a wobbly thing, as they draw circles on the board with the planchette before returning it to the middle.

“Just-just touch it lightly,” Ben tells Diego, looking up at him. “Very lightly.”

Diego nods, all serious and solemn. Diego had always thought his Ouija board was a load of bullshit.

Ben inhales, lets it out shakily, rattling in his chest, and then he says, “is there anyone here to talk to us?”

Klaus is the only spirit in the room. (He’s the only spirit in the house, actually, which is incredibly unusual for the Academy, though he isn’t complaining.)

Both Diego and Ben stare at the planchette. Klaus reaches forwards and presses his blood-stained fingers to it.

They fall straight through it.

“Ben?”

“Give it a moment,” Ben mutters. Gritting his teeth together, Klaus tries again. His hands fall through it.

“Fuck,” Klaus hisses between his teeth. “Fuck, no, no, no-“

“Are there any spirits here tonight?” Ben asks, lifting his voice slightly; it just makes the wobble in his tone more pronounced. Frantic, Klaus tries to touch the planchette; tries to push it, tries to wrap his whole fist around it, tries to flip the god damn board.

“Klaus?” Ben whispers, blinking rapidly a few times. “Are you here?”

“I’m here, Ben,” Klaus croaks.

“How is this supposed to work, Ben?” Diego asks in a sad tone, looking at his brother with large, drooping eyes rapidly filling with despair. Ben shakes his head.

“It just is,” he says, frustrated, and then he shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe-maybe we’re doing something wrong.”

“What else can we do?”

“I-I’m not sure,” Ben mutters. “Sometimes, with him, it would take a while. We just have to give it a while, okay?”

Diego presses his lips together. Klaus knows patience has never been his speciality, and he can’t help but smile sadly at it. Ben licks his dry lips; Klaus sees a tremor in his hands.

“Do you-do you want to?” Ben asks. Diego’s eyes bounce up, widen slightly, and then he nods.

“Is anyone here?” He asks, stutter-free. “Can you move the…”

“Planchette.”

“Can you move the planchette?”

Klaus sucks in a breath, curls his hands into fists and tilts his head back. “Come on,” he growls. And then he reaches out, places his fingers on the planchette _, places his fingers on the planchette_ , and pushes. A tingle runs through his fingertips, like an electric shock.

It moves.

Both Diego and Ben make a noise, heads shooting up to look at one another. “Did-did-“

“No.” Ben shakes his head swiftly. “I didn’t-did you?”

Diego shakes his head. “No, no.” He inhales raggedly, looking around the bedroom, eyes wide. “K-Klaus? _Klaus_ , is that-are you _here_?” His voice wobbles dangerously, pitching and getting caught in his throat.

But he feels so tired all of a sudden. As if the simple action of reaching out and managing to move something he shouldn’t be able to physically move has drained him of all energy, wrung him dry. He ought to try again.

He wants to sleep.

Klaus-

_“Klaus?”_

-closes his eyes and falls backwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to let me know if you like it through a kudos or a comment; all is appreciated and I'd love to hear your thoughts, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask!  
> This is a multi-chapter fic but I'll likely be posting drabbles also related to this universe in this series, so if you're interested in the sounds of that, also keep an eye open for them!  
> Additionally; although I'd consider myself fluent in English, but it isn't my native langue and mistakes might still be made if I don't proofread, so feel free to point them out so I can correct them, thank you :)
> 
> There won't be any incest in this fic - but I also note that Allison and Luther are close, so when writing their relationship I just want to put it out there that I don't intend it to be anything more than a sibling bond.
> 
> Thank you :)


	2. Chapter 2

Blood spills out in front of his eyes, an ever-growing puddle that crawls sluggishly forwards. It stains the concrete-the wood?-the _floor_ in front of him. Continues to expand slowly, so slowly, and he wonders how much blood a human body holds. He wonders how much of it spilled out on the floor in front of him. It oozes free from the wound hidden behind his now-limp hand and it bubbles up his throat-he can't breathe-he is so tired- _he can't breathe_ , and it burns, and it hurts.

He tries to inhale but the air gets caught in the web of blood filling his throat and he chokes; battles himself to try and get air down, tries to swallow blood, spit it out. His body jerks with the effort; his back arches, his hips jerk, his feet twitch. He catches a sliver of air and embraces it greedily, tries to steal more, but it escapes him; drowned out by the tidal wave of blood crawling up his throat and spilling between his teeth, past his lips, a hot trail on his cheek.

His eyes are open. It takes him a moment to realise, all of a sudden, that he can see. He can see a museum, towering over him, rising high into the blindingly bright sky. The world spins and he flinches weakly, half expecting the museum to come crashing down upon him. Why is he at a museum? Right. The mission. His siblings are inside-he needs to help them-he needs to get up-he needs their help. 

He stretches himself out on the floor slightly. Everything goes white-hot as a fire explodes in his guts. His vision fades back in slowly. Moving to get his siblings will not be happening; instead, he does his best to outstretch one arm in the direction of the museum. Perhaps he can haul himself closer.

There is a ringing in his ears. It keeps getting louder, makes him dizzy, rattles his skull. His head feels so heavy. He lets it rest on the floor and he watches the museum door. His lips move over slurred sounds, poor attempts at words. _D'go, 's sore, pl'se, help, gu-uys._

It's okay, though. Everything is getting distant. The pain is lessening; giving way to exhaustion. He is so tired. He just needs to rest, and then he can call for help, or they will come out and see him. Everything will be alright. The museum disappears, fades to nothing, and the pain is gone. Everything will be alright.

* * *

  
He opens his eyes, gasping for breath. He blinks until his vision clears, until he can make sense of shapes and colours. He is on the floor in his bedroom at the Academy, curled on his side, one hand outstretched in front of himself and the other clutching his jumper, heavy and wet with blood.   
  
He can feel the phantom sensation of a bullet tearing through him and he grits his teeth against it, hisses air between his teeth. He looks out through narrowed eyes, looks to the closed door of his bedroom and reaches out to it. He forces his jaw apart with a gasp, freeing himself to speak.

“G-guys,” he calls, voice hoarse and croaking. “Help-I need help, _guys_ -“

He trails off into a groan, teeth chattering with pain, and he needs help, why can’t they hear him, it _hurts_ like someone has torn into his flesh like an animal and made an attempt of shredding his organs apart. And he has been left alone, all alone, to die writhing on the ground in agony. His siblings have left him.

As quick as reality had melted from his grasp, it comes back now. The pain becomes nothing more than the lingering touch of a phantom, non-existent but winding, and he gasps for breath, hesitantly lets his body lose tension in his wound-up muscles. He slumps, rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling.

He is in his bedroom. He blinks. Had-had he not just been by the museum? Had he not just been shot and waiting for his siblings to come and help him? How did he get home?

He blinks, disoriented and confused. He sits upright, pushing himself off the floor.

He is dead. Has been for a while now. His siblings didn’t leave him; they didn’t know, and they tried to get him back. The sudden anger that had risen inside of him at the idea of them leaving him to die so painfully abates slightly, calm down, and guilt rises in its stead. How could he have thought that when he had watched his siblings sob over his own body?

He places his hands flat on the floor beside him; inhales shakily, lets his eyes dart around his dark bedroom. It is weird, seeing his bedroom in the dark. He is so used to seeing it lit up, seeing every string of fairy lights, every lamp, and every candle lit, banishing the shadows from each and every corner.

He blinks and turns around. He’s wrong. His bedside lamp is on.

The Ouija board is on the floor, planchette laying in the same spot Klaus pushed it to, but the two siblings that had been playing it are gone. When Klaus glances at the clock in his bedroom, it tells him that it is six in the morning. He has spent seven hours on the floor, his mind outside of the museum in the puddle of his own blood, reliving his death over, and over, and over, like a broken record on repeat for eternity.

The thought sends a shiver down his spine. His eyes flutter closed and images of the ghosts he had seen doing that same thing play out on his eyelids; that woman who had jumped out of the window of the building opposite the Academy, constantly appearing in the window, walking through it, and falling to the ground only to disappear with a haunting wail and reappear, sobbing, in the window to start it all again. The kid that would run and skip down the sidewalk, giggling and chasing an invisible balloon, and then he would chase it out onto the road and there would be the phantom sound of tires screeching and then the boy would be hit by an invisible impact, and then disappear, return on the sidewalk, and start again.

If Klaus could be sick, he doesn’t doubt he would be.

He places one hand onto the bed behind him, using it to leverage himself up onto his feet, and then he sits down on it. His whole body trembles lightly and he wraps his arms around his middle, staring down at his feet on the floor. He is fine. He is safe and fine, as much as a dead person can be.

He shakes his hands out, exhales loudly and stands up.

Diego and Ben have since left his bedroom and he feels guilt stir up inside of him. He had managed to push that planchette, even if only slightly. He had the chance to talk to them. They have to try again, though. They have to. They had left a lamp on for him. Both of them know he always hated, and still hates, the dark.

He scrubs his hands down his face, stares one last time at the Ouija board remaining on the floor, and then he steps outside of his bedroom. He lingers in the dimly lit corridor, eyes searching it up and down. Then he turns to the right and walks down the corridor until he comes to Ben’s door. He hovers outside it, toying his bottom lip between his teeth, and then he steps inside.

Ben is curled on his bed, fisting his blankets by his chest. Despite being asleep, he looks tired; skin a little paler than usual, eyes sunken.

Klaus perches on the edge of his bed. Perhaps it might be a little creepy, watching his brother sleep, but up until he began to spend his nights outside of the Academy and elsewhere a lot of the time he would tip-toe down the corridor and into Ben’s bedroom, and they would stay up for a while, or Ben, half-asleep, would tug his covers up enough for Klaus to slip inside, and he would only startle a little when Klaus would turn the bedside lamp on. Klaus would seek comfort in the steady sound of his breathing, the warmth emanating from him, chasing away the cold phantoms of the dead that hounded him relentlessly.

And sometimes Ben would sneak into his bedroom, often the night of his own personal training, and Klaus would sit up and ramble on about stories, some true and some made up on the spot, and if Ben let him he would paint his nails with the clear, sparkly polish he had, and he’d do his best to distract him from whatever it was he needed to be distracted from.

Klaus swallows. “I’m still here, Ben,” he murmurs. Lips twitching, he says, “at least you get your bed back to yourself.” He pauses, looks down. “Kind of.”

He moves from his bed to the windowsill, sitting up on it and lifting his knees to his chest. He doesn’t know what to do, where to go. He wishes Ben would wake up and return to the Ouija board, and he might have another chance to talk to him.

He isn’t entirely sure how Ouija boards truly work. Reginald had gotten him one when he was young-around six-and it had helped to concentrate on communicating with the spirits. It helped the spirits, too, he thinks; gave them something to concentrate and focus on, channelled their energy slightly. Klaus had always felt cold when he used it.

He had just assumed that the Ouija board offered a link to the living realm, that maybe there was something spiritual about it that perhaps it allowed the ghosts to feed off of the living people, in a sense; use their energy to communicate. He has no idea, but it had taken a surprising amount of his energy. He isn’t sure how he’d be able to have an entire conversation doing that.

He sighs heavily, tipping his head back to rest against the wall. He’ll simply have to see what happens.

* * *

Ben stirs. Klaus’ head lifts quickly, watching Ben begin to wake up. He stretches, blinks his eyes open and looks around, and then he heaves himself upright in bed, slumping tiredly. He lifts his hands, rubs his eyes, and then looks around his room.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Klaus says with a half-hearted grin that teeters on his lips and then falls quickly. Ben doesn’t look in his direction; doesn’t hear him. He sighs, forcing his legs over the edge of his bed and forcing himself to his feet. He wanders to his wardrobe and Klaus averts his gaze, staring through the gap in his curtains to eye the dark street outside. He turns back around when he hears the door groan.

Hopping onto his feet, Klaus follows Ben into the corridor. From the other bedrooms, he can hear the rest of their siblings shuffling about, waking up and getting changed.

Ben pauses outside of Klaus’ bedroom. He eyes the door, face heavy, shoulders slumping.

He looks so tired, so heavy with grief, it pains Klaus. Despite knowing better, he reaches out, tries to touch his shoulder, grab his arm, but his hand just goes through him. Ben shivers and it seems to shake him from his thoughts, for he turns and heads downstairs and towards the kitchen.

One by one, the rest of their siblings filter downstairs too, slipping into their assigned chairs. Reginald doesn’t come down and Mom is already busying herself with dishing out their breakfast.

The table is silent. Two chairs are empty.

Klaus hovers behind his chair, tucked right into the table. He can’t pull it out and there is no space for him to sit in it, so he resigns himself to standing.

The sound of cutlery against dishes fills the dining room. Usually, when Reginald wouldn’t come down for their meals, the kitchen would be full of talking. Luther and Allison, chatting away happily, Five coaxing Vanya into a conversation; Diego, Ben and Klaus’ voices growing all gradually louder, laughter cackling through the air. Then, with time, arguments and glares; the tap, tap, tap of one of Diego’s knives on the wood, the sound of Allison turning pages in a magazine or Ben turning pages in his book, Luther trying to talk about their plan for class or training that day and usually always failing.

Allison clears her throat. “He would hate this, you know,” she announces. Everyone looks over to her with wide eyes, as if afraid of her breaking the fragile silence surrounding them.

“Hate what?” Luther asks.

“This,” she repeats, gesturing around them. “Sitting silently, being sad. He would hate it. He would be trying to cheer us all up.”

For a long moment, no one says anything. Klaus clears his throat, pointing at Allison. “She’s right,” he says, and ignores the pain that bubbles up in his chest when he goes unnoticed.

“He’d be threatening to paint Diego’s nails,” Vanya utters, hesitant and meek.

“And giving Luther a makeover,” Allison retorts, leaning back in her chair and slumping. They snicker slightly at the thought, lips twisting into fond smiles, eyes crinkling and staring at the table. It feels weird, to be spoken about as if he is dead – and he is, but to listen to people speak to him as if he isn’t there. It’s unnerving, almost.

“He’d force us to go to Griddy’s.”

“And then he’d eat so much he’d throw up outside.”

“And beg Luther to carry him back.”

The table dissolves into giggles and Klaus can’t help but smile too. “I still hold the record for eating the most donuts,” he states, leaning on the chair. His smile wavers, then falls when they continue to talk over him.

They don’t mean it. Of course they don’t; but it still hurts, this utter invisibility. It stings deep in his chest and he swallows the feeling deeper down.

If nothing else, he is still managing to make them laugh without being there, really.

They all quieten down again, relapse into awkward, delicate silence. “The funeral was shit,” Diego mutters. Klaus coughs.

“Thanks.”

“He would have hated that.”

“I did, actually.”

Diego sighs, staring at his half-touched plate. There is something on the tip of his tongue, something he wants to say, and Klaus wants to urge him to say it. He watches Diego toy with the idea, lips pursed. His eyes flit to Five’s empty chair, then to Klaus’, and it seems to be enough to sour his mood and throw him back into silence, giving up on whatever he was going to say. Klaus slumps.

One by one, they give up on breakfast and drift apart. Muffled from upstairs, he hears Vanya begin to play her violin. Luther and Allison head into the living room and Diego shuffles outside into the courtyard; Ben goes upstairs.

Klaus lingers, lips pressed together, and then curiosity gets the best of him and it spurs him on to follow Diego outside. The sun is bright and cold, light and chilling, and he cannot feel the warmth it offers on his skin. 

He is standing by the tall white obelisk erected to mark Klaus’ grave. It sparkles in the sun, and engraved into it is the umbrella symbol identical to the one on his forearm along with the name _Number Four Hargreeves._

Of course Reginald would not put his name on it.

Klaus sighs at it and wanders over to Diego’s side. He watches Diego’s hands curl into fists, his jaw clench.

“It’s different, now,” his brother murmurs. “When was the last time we all went to Griddy’s?”

Klaus sighs, looking at his own grave. “Years,” he answers. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his shorts, rocks on the balls of his feet. His eyes flick up to Diego. “We went after they put the portrait of Five up. Commemorate his memory in our own way, and all that.”

“Luther just doesn’t understand,” he mutters, shaking his head. “This-this is Dad’s fault. W-who’s next? When is he going to stop?”

Klaus frowns, narrowing his eyes. It isn’t like Diego to open up about his thoughts so intimately, but he supposes that he thinks he is alone, too.

“No one else is going to die,” Klaus tells him, lifting his chin up. “I won’t let that happen.” It’s laughable, really. How could he stop it? He can’t.

Diego just shakes his head again to himself, huffing, and then he tugs a knife out from his sock and steps up to the gravestone. He braces one hand against it, lifts the knife to its surface, and hesitates. Klaus grins.

“Do it.”

As if he can hear him, Diego digs the knife into the surface. It takes him a while to do, but by the time he steps back and lowers his hand, replacing the knife back into its sheath, the name _KLAUS_ can be seen clearly beneath _Number Four._

Klaus beams at Diego. “I like that.”

Diego’s eyes bore into the grave, then he looks down at the dirt beneath his feet. He clears his throat. “Rest well, Klaus,” he mumbles quietly, awkwardly, and then he goes back inside, dragging his feet along the ground. Klaus lingers outside, standing atop his grave with his arms folded over his chest.

There is a deep sadness which aches inside of him; a grief for his own siblings in their state of mourning. It reaches him deeply; he had never considered what they would be like should he die, but he gets to see it now. Any doubts that they wouldn’t care, that they would brush it off or even be relieved, are now cleared, much to his relief. They do care, they are mourning. It stirs up old emotions inside of him, those dark nights when the ghosts were too loud and he was hiding away in his bedroom to hide the fact that he was going through withdrawals from them, when he thought that if he left and never came back, they wouldn’t care. That if he spent a night in an alleyway, or with a stranger who didn’t truly care for him, they wouldn’t care, that they might only ever look down upon him, and that maybe he was better out there by himself rather than continuing to disappoint them all.

It seems that this is not the case. It lifts a weight off his shoulders that he didn’t even know was there.

They all had been drifting further and further apart as of late, falling into groups of Allison and Luther; Diego, Ben and Klaus; and Vanya, and distancing themselves from everyone else. Arguments were nearly a daily occurrence, Luther and Diego got violent at least three times a week, typically more, and everyone save Luther and perhaps Allison and Ben were scrambling to make a plan to leave the Academy.

The future did not seem to hold close family bonds for them all, and only the destruction of the Umbrella Academy. They would go their own ways, fall into the consequences of the abuse that went on in the Academy, and likely would hardly speak to anyone; and if they did, it would only be inside of the small groups they had put themselves in. Their relationships were rocky and crumbling now and he truthfully can’t imagine something pulling them all back together.

They are no longer thirteen. They no longer sneak out to go to Griddy’s together, they no longer play board games in the attic. They grit their teeth, they deal with nightmares and the crushing weight of the expectations of the world watching in on their life through a tinted window, and they bear it until either they get out or they cannot bear it anymore.

Klaus stares at his grave and wonder what one will come first.

He inhales, turns away from the towering stone, and faces the Academy.

He is still here. Perhaps he could chase that rest Diego mentioned, and maybe he could even find it. He might be able to leave the Academy and all of its torment behind, shake it free like shedding his skin, and find something close to eternal peace. But that would mean leaving his siblings behind in this mess, turning his back on them and letting the Academy steal them away from him, let it corrupt and taint them and ruin them. And, possibly, take even more of them too young. He can’t let that happen.

He is here. He can move that planchette. He can do _something_.

Lifting his head, Klaus walks back into the Academy feeling more motivated than he has in a long time.

He thinks it is funny how it only took dying to do this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts and any feedback you have!


End file.
